The Naming Ordeal
by xoxNxox
Summary: Expecting couple Jace and Clary spend a lazy day together at home and discuss potential names for their baby. But with Clace, what's a discussion without a little banter? All-human, CLACE ONE-SHOT


**Author's Note:**

Hi, guys! This is a Clace one-shot that I just randomly came up with when I was slacking around instead of studying for an all-important exam...well, actually, make that two important exams...

For those of you guys who read my other story 'Redemption', this has nothing to do with that one. I'll be updating the next chapter for that story some time late this coming week, after my exams are over, maybe on the 28th, Thursday...I need some time to clean up for that one, so yeah. Bear with me.

With that said, hope you guys will like reading this one-shot. It's kinda lame but oh well...Please read and review!

**Disclaimer: **Cassandra Clare owns the TMI series, and of course, Clary & Jace...and I don't own any of the movies or characters mentioned in this story...

* * *

**The Naming Ordeal**

Clary was lounging comfortably on the sofa in their living room, Jace's head perched on her lap.

She ran her fingers lovingly through his luscious golden-blonde curls, a serene smile lighting up her face as she watched him nuzzle his face into her round stomach, engrossed in a hushed conversation with their baby. She jumped slightly, feeling their daughter give a strong kick just as Jace pushed her T-shirt up and kissed the bare skin of her stomach.

"You know…I'm starting to feel a little left out here," she said lightly as she poked Jace's cheek.

He looked up, his golden eyes shimmering endearingly and a playful smirk adorning his handsome features. "Well, what do you want to talk about, mommy?" he asked casually.

Clary shrugged. "I don't know," she said, her emerald green eyes gazing contemplatively into the distance as she absentmindedly stroked her belly with her fingertips. "Ooh, ooh!" she suddenly exclaimed, causing Jace to sit up.

"What? What?" he demanded, feeling a little startled by her sudden excitement. He was just about to return to his important conversation with his unborn daughter about how dangerous ducks were and how she ought to stay away from those foul beasts, but no, his wife just had to interrupt him.

"Baby names, Jace," Clary answered, quickly getting off the sofa in search of a notepad and some pencils.

Jace spontaneously got up, arms braced out wide on either side of Clary as he followed her 'run' about the living room–or perhaps, 'waddle' would be a better substitute word for his heavily pregnant wife. She was about 36 weeks along, just shy of a month away from her due date, so it was understandable that Jace was becoming more overprotective than usual.

Once she had successfully retrieved the items, they both returned to the sofa, Clary taking up half of it as she laid her head on the armrest and casually propped her feet up on Jace's lap.

"Here," she said, tearing off a piece of paper from the notepad and handing it to Jace. She tossed a pencil at him, nearly hitting him in the eye.

"Good grief, woman! Careful! You're going to take my eye out," he chided her.

Clary stuck out her tongue at him childishly but otherwise ignored his comment. "Okay, so you come up with names that you like and I'll come up with names I like, and then we'll narrow them down together. Got it?" she asked, an enthusiastic grin gracing her delicate features.

Jace couldn't help but smile back at her as he gently rubbed her feet. "Yes, dear," he said, sounding like the typically _whipped_ husband that he was.

Clary scrunched up her nose in disgust. "Don't call me 'dear'. We're not fifty yet," she scolded him as she looked down at her notepad and began racking her head for names.

"Hmm, whatever you say, love," Jace chuckled.

A few minutes passed in silence, save for the sounds of scribbling and furious scratching across paper. After a while, Clary's excitement dwindled down, replaced entirely by irritation instead.

"I can't think of anything!" she grumbled angrily as she flung the pencil across the room.

Jace dropped his pencil in his lap, looking over at his wife, who apparently appeared to be sulking. She had her arms folded tightly across her chest, and her eyes were glistening with unshed tears. Hormones, he concluded silently, a tiny smile on his face.

"Relax, baby. It's fine. It doesn't have to be something completely exotic and unheard of, you know," he said, trying to coax her.

"But I want our baby to have a special name," she whined, her bottom lip quivering into a pout.

Jace chuckled. "She will. Trust me," he said, carefully leaning over her stomach to peck her pouty lips. "In fact, I've already come up with a few," he murmured against her mouth before slowly retreating to his earlier position on the sofa.

"Really?" She perked up happily.

Jace nodded and Clary reached her arms out for him eagerly like a two-year-old child asking to be picked up–with the exception that she was currently sporting a stomach the size of a basketball. "Help me up," she ordered, to which Jace obediently complied, resting his hand on the small of her back.

Clary leaned her head against his shoulder, trying to get a peek at the list of names that Jace–_much to her surprise–_had already thought up for their baby girl, but he deliberately angled the piece of paper away from her inquisitive gaze.

"Come on, Jace. Show me!" she begged, impatience swarming in her still-tiny frame.

Jace grinned. "Nope. I'll read them out one by one," he said, clearing his throat as he straightened himself. Clary huffed but put up no protest to her stubborn husband's request.

"The first one, Jacie, with an '-ie' instead of an '-ey'," he told her after a long dramatic pause, and Clary's mood instantly deflated.

"'Jacie'? Really, Jace? Really?" she spluttered out incredulously, causing a wide smirk to stretch across his face. Ugh, she should have known that that was what her arrogant, self-obsessed husband's first choice would be. "Next," she gritted out, thinking it was probably best not to linger on his horrendous name suggestion.

Jace pouted but continued on his list. "Okay, the next one is…Jacette." Clary narrowed her green eyes warningly at him. "Okay… How about Jacinda? Jacephine? Jacelyn?"

Clary shook her head furiously at him and ripped the piece of paper out of his hands. Much to her astonishment, those were indeed the names that Jace had so 'fantastically' thought of. She had been hoping that he had only been making those names up to purposely annoy her, but as usual, Jace never ceased to go against the opposite of what she would expect of him.

"Honestly, Jace, could you please take this seriously and stop coming up with names that are female variations of your own name? And what the hell is 'Jacelyn'? It sounds like a combination of your name and my mother's!" she exclaimed exasperatedly. "You're not secretly in love with my mother, are you?" she interrogated him with slitted eyes and Jace immediately blanched at the idea.

"EW, Clary, no!" he defended himself, a light shiver escaping him. "I might have thought that she was hot when I was eight, but–" Clary's eyes widened.

"Wait!" she interrupted him. "You had a crush on my mom when you were eight?!" she practically screeched.

Jace stuttered, his left eye twitching in embarrassment as his cheeks flushed the lightest shade of pink. "N-n-no?" It came out as a question. He coughed violently before clearing his throat again. "Did I say that? I meant to say 'no'," he answered more assertively this time.

Clary let out another huff of frustration and rolled her eyes at her husband. She tried furiously to shake off the image of an eight-year-old Jace having the 'hots' for her mother. Nope, it was definitely not a pretty image. What made the whole situation ten times worse was that she not only felt grossed out, but she was actually 'jealous' of the fact that her mother was Jace's first crush. It was completely and utterly messed-up. _She _was messed up. Goddamned hormones screwing up her mind.

"Hello…Clary? Clarissa? Clarissa Adele Herondale?" Jace waved his hand in front of her face before snapping his fingers repeatedly to get her attention.

"What?" Clary finally snapped.

"I thought of other names for the baby," he said softly as he caressed her tummy, hoping to get her mind off his accidental confession about his past infatuation with her mother. He could only imagine what Jocelyn would do to him if she ever found out…and her father…eck, Valentine would probably chop off his balls and hang them on his mantelpiece by the fireplace for Christmas.

Clary sighed. "Fine. Let's hear it, then," she relented, urging him to go on.

Jace smiled nervously and bit his lip, trying desperately to conjure up decent names out of thin air. Yeah, he had actually been lying when he'd told his wife that he'd thought of other names for their daughter. The truth was, he sucked at this almost as badly as she did. Well, actually, he doubted that Clary was terrible at thinking up names if she actually put her mind to it, but that was beside the point. He was running out of time! Clary was noticeably getting infuriated him with each ticking second as he failed to give her an answer.

"Well?" she demanded, roughly slapping his arm.

"Um, A-Anastasia!" Jace blurted out the first name that came to his mind. He remembered being coerced into watching the movie several times before by Clary when they were both younger. It was, apparently, one of her all-time favorite movies. It _could_ work. Anastasia was after all, a redhead, and a feisty one, too. Exactly like Clary. Besides, if their daughter were to take after either one of them, it would most likely be Clary. Yes, it would definitely work.

"No," Clary replied sternly, cutting off Jace's train of thoughts.

"But why?" Jace whined, a little miffed by her rejection. It wasn't a totally bad suggestion, even if it had been at the spur of the moment. It was better than Jacie, Jacette, Jacinda, Jacephine and Jacelyn combined, he silently argued.

"Because…I don't feel a spark when I hear the name 'Anastasia Herondale'. It just sounds…weird," Clary reasoned.

Jace sighed and threw his head backwards against the sofa, resisting the urge to list out all of Anastasia's positive traits. If he remembered correctly, from the movie at least, Anastasia was a strong and independent woman who cared a lot about finding herself and her family. He wanted his daughter to be exactly like that: a family-oriented girl, loving towards _her_ parents. But then again, at the end of the movie, Anastasia decided to elope with that character Dimitri instead of staying with her grandmother, Jace realized, his golden eyes widening in horror. No, he refused let his daughter be one of those girls who would leave home and run off with another boy! He would much rather keep her safely tucked away in their home, and maybe, when she was at least 35, he would find the perfect suitor for her instead.

"What about Ariel?" Jace asked as an image of the redheaded mermaid swam through his mind.

Clary rolled her eyes at him in disdain. "Oh sure, why not? We live next to the ocean anyway. Our daughter could grow up believing that she really is a mermaid and start talking to the fishes–"

Jace's eyes widened again in alarm and he shook his head. "No, no, no, wait. I take it back. I don't like the name Ariel," he said, distractedly recalling how Ariel had been a stubborn and rebellious daughter to her father and had foolishly made a deal with the sea-witch Ursula for the chance to be with a human boy. Urgh, again with a 'boy'. It wasn't as if Eric was that much of a handsome character anyway; Ariel was just a naïve teenager who fell in love with him at first sight.

Jace rubbed at his temples, feeling unbelievably stressed out. What was with all these Disney movies promoting the idea of girls chasing after the boy of their dreams? It wasn't right, instilling such values into little girls watching them. He had to be careful to not let his daughter watch such movies. He didn't need her to be influenced into thinking that life was all about finding true love, even if he was being slightly hypocritical about the issue, where he and Clary were concerned anyway.

Just then, another name popped into Jace's head and a large, victorious smile spread across his face. "What about Merida?" he asked his wife, whose frown only deepened in return. "You know, from that movie 'Brave'?" Jace continued, remembering the movie he'd watched with Clary some time ago. He couldn't find any faults with that movie; Merida, as far as he knew, was headstrong and brave, and most importantly, she didn't care about boys. She might have been harsh to her mother earlier on in the movie, but she eventually learnt her lesson and patched things up with her. It was perfect. And not to mention she was a red–

"Jace, are you going to keep listing out every single character from an animated film that's redheaded?" Clary asked, feeling increasingly vexed. "There's a 50 percent chance that our baby could turn out to be a blonde."

Jace pouted again, upset that Clary kept shooting down his suggestions. He had valid reasons for choosing them, he thought, feeling a little hurt. "Fine then," he finally muttered. "What about…Aurora?" It was a pretty name, he mused. A sweet name.

"After Sleeping Beauty?" Clary asked, doubt clear in her voice. She was seriously considering whacking Jace on the head with all his name suggestions so far. Honestly, could he think of nothing else but the names of princesses from all these Disney movies? Though Anastasia technically wasn't a Disney movie, but she digressed. What other names would he suggest next? Cinderella? Belle? Snow White? Jasmine? Nope, no way in hell. Especially not Jasmine. Clary had a feeling that Jace would turn that name into something that sounded like 'Jace' too…like 'Jacemin'. Clary shuddered. That was so not going to happen.

"Honey, could we please just–"

"Fine, Clary, I get it. You don't like any of my name suggestions. It's fine," Jace said, not bothering to hide the fact that he was fully sulking now. He sat facing away from her on the sofa, his shoulders slightly hunched and his golden eyes drawn with sadness.

Clary felt a slight guilt tugging at her chest. She sighed. "Honey, it's not that," she started, trying to gather her words carefully in an attempt to beguile her sensitive husband. She internally rolled her eyes, her conscience reminding her about how Jace was always muttering about her being the 'hormonal' one in their relationship; it surely didn't seem that way now. "It's just…you know...Aurora–I don't want our daughter to end up like some damsel-in-distress locked away in her tower waiting for her Prince Charming to come save her. God forbid she takes after her namesake and ends up lazing around in bed all day," she said, trying to make sense out of the words she'd just uttered. Okay, maybe the name Aurora was beautiful, but Clary didn't want to be one of those stereotypical mothers who named their daughters after those Disney princesses (sans Anastasia). She wanted something different and…_unique_.

Jace nodded, though he remained quiet.

Clary wrapped her arms around his neck and entangled her fingers in his hair. Slowly, she turned his head towards her and brought her lips up to his, kissing him slowly, softly, to convey her apology. Jace immediately melted at her touch and kissed her back, his own arms wrapping around her waist. When they pulled away from their kiss, he rested his head on her shoulder and sighed softly.

"I made some mango pudding early this morning. Do you want some?" Clary asked, gently combing her fingers through Jace's curls.

"Yeah," he said, nodding, though there was still a muted dejected expression on his face.

"How about you go put on a movie while I get you some pudding?" she suggested and Jace quickly nodded again before heading towards the DVD player.

Clary watched him sift through their collection of DVDs before she, too, carefully heaved herself off the sofa and made her way towards the kitchen. It was a good thing she had the foresight to make some mango pudding early today. It always came in handy when Jace was having his 'manly period'.

'_After all, the way to a man's heart is always through his stomach,_' her mother's chirpy voice rang in her head. Clary nearly dropped the pudding as yet another disturbing image of Jace checking out her mother flitted across her vision. God, she needed to stop. This was unhealthy for her…and the baby.

'_Focus, Clary. Focus. Focus on cutting the mango pudding,'_ she directed herself as she drew out a knife from one of the drawers.

As she busied herself in the kitchen, Jace unthinkingly chose the movie 'Frozen'; Clary had gotten it a while ago and they had yet to watch it together. He shrugged to himself as he inserted the disc into the player.

Several moments later, Clary returned, a plate piled with mango pudding for her husband. She raised an eyebrow when she realized that Jace had chosen the movie 'Frozen' but decided not to dwell too much on it. Still, it amused her a little to see Jace's sudden peaked interest in Disney movies. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that they were expecting a baby girl, Clary thought, dismissing it to him having a 'pre-daddy girly phase', if such a thing even existed.

She handed the plate of pudding to Jace and tucked herself into his side, pulling a woolen blanket over the both of them. He wrapped an arm around her waist and silently ate his pudding as they watched the movie, his body relaxing with each heavenly bite he took. Oh, how he loved mangoes…

Clary was thoroughly engrossed in watching the movie when halfway through the song 'Do You Want To Build A Snowman?', Jace suddenly reached for the remote and paused the movie.

"Jace!" she cried out irritatedly, both eyebrows raised questioningly at him. Jace was staring at her with a weird, huge grin on his face and his golden eyes were glowing with a spark that Clary recognized to be 'enlightenment'–or so he called it–every time he claimed that he'd experienced a moment of 'epiphany'.

"What, now?" Clary asked, rubbing the space between her eyebrows in pure annoyance. "Did you just realize that mangoes are God's gift to the world? That you've a sudden urge to run out of the house and build a snowman in the middle of fall?"

"No, Clary. It's better than all that, I promise," Jace finally spoke up, excitement clear in his voice.

Clary raised her eyes to look at him, flustered green clashing with exuberant gold. She held her breath, steeling herself for her husband's 'mindblowing revelation' when he opened his mouth in yet another dramatic pause. Then came his words:

"I think we should name her 'Anna'."

Clary slapped her forehead, falling back into the sofa with another exasperated groan.

_God help their poor baby._

* * *

**A/N:**

Haha, Jace and his Disney movies...Clary and her picky-ness...I totally enjoyed analyzing the Disney movies from Jace's POV as the paranoid, overprotective dad. But anyway, just out of pure curiosity, what do you guys think they should name their daughter? I know for a fact that the name 'Arianne' is always a popular choice.

Leave me a review on your thoughts on this one-shot, guys!:)

XO!

~N


End file.
